


this midnight and all the rest

by acetheticallyy (judesstfrancis)



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Domestic, Established Relationship, M/M, New Year's Eve, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:15:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28459629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/judesstfrancis/pseuds/acetheticallyy
Summary: The new year, for them, could start on the second if they wanted it to. Or the third, or the fifth. February. March. Maybe it would.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 20
Kudos: 97





	this midnight and all the rest

**Author's Note:**

> hello everyone!! happy 2021! before we start yes the word count is intentional, it's a weird tradition I have that technically started wholly on accident but I've done it too many times to stop now. as always, shoutout to robin for being the reason that anything I do gets done <3
> 
> this year I went for something a lot more low key, celebration wise, bc it seemed to fit the mood better. I hope u all like it!

For the fifth time in about half as many minutes, a loud, wet cough wracks through Martin’s chest, causing the hand combing through his curls to pause in their movements. He can barely hear the low droning of some cheesy music score coming from the television as his head pounds with the force of it. With a shiver and a sad, pitiful groan, he turns back to tuck his face into the soft fabric of the sweater beneath him. The hand in his hair shifts, thumb sweeping downwards to rub soothing circles at his temple, a gentle pressure that he can’t help but lean into. A “thank you” builds in his throat, coming out instead as a tuneless whine when the wires in his brain get crossed and refuse to let him speak.

There’s a click from somewhere to his right as the sweater under his cheek shifts and the cheesy music score cuts off. The hand rubbing at his temple slides instead to curl around his jaw, tipping his head upwards with a couple fingers underneath his chin. It takes a while for him to get his eyes open, a combination of harsh light and dryness keeping them stuck stubbornly closed. When he finally manages, Jon’s face comes into focus, a soft, sympathetic smile spreading over his lips.

“M’sorry,” Martin mumbles, squinting against the light of the lamp on the side table. He swallows against a tickle building in his throat, trying to clear it away before another coughing fit comes. Jon shakes his head, threading his fingers through Martin’s hair once more and scratching lightly at his scalp.

“You’re fine, Martin,” he insists.

Martin groans in protest, smacking a hand lightly against Jon’s cheek. “No, we were supposed to be having fun,” he says. “Now you can’t even watch your movie because I’m making too much noise.”

“That’s not why I turned it off, Martin. And it’s not like I’m not having fun with you here.”

It takes a second, for him to balance, but eventually Martin is able to pull himself up on one elbow. He does his level best to look severely unimpressed while still squinting against the light in the room. “I keep having to lean over you to cough onto the floor. You’re going to have bruises on your waist because I can’t stop hacking.”

“Okay maybe _fun_ isn’t the right word,” Jon amends, tugging on one of Martin’s curls when he scoffs a little at his words. “But I still _like_ being here with you. It’s not a hardship to let you use me as a pillow when you’re sick, you know. I might actually like it.”

“But I’m _gross_ —”

“You could never—”

As if to punctuate his argument, Martin suddenly sneezes three quick times in succession, barely managing to turn his head away in time.

“Right, it’s a little gross,” Jon relents, reaching behind himself to grab a tissue. Martin takes it gratefully, wiping his nose tiredly and tossing it into the bin they’d pulled next to the couch. “I just mean it’s nice to be with you, no matter what state you’re in. And I don’t _mind_ taking care of you. I love you.”

Martin blames all the cold medicine in his system for the fluttery feeling that spreads through his chest, then. All things considered, really, it could just be another cough building.

They’ve been together long enough that it shouldn’t excite him, anymore, having it so plainly stated—that he’s good company, that it’s not a chore to take care of him, that he’s worth more than just when he’s at his best…that he’s _loved_. But he still doesn’t get it, sometimes, how he doesn’t need to do anything, doesn’t need to _be_ anything more than just himself to receive that kind of love. And Jon, for all that he tries to act so unaffected by everything, hands it out so _freely_. Martin can’t help that it still catches him off guard from time to time.

He ducks his head, scrunching his nose as the fibers of Jon’s sweater threaten to make him sneeze again. “Still,” he mutters, “I can’t believe I’m ill on _New Year’s_. We had plans!”

Jon makes a sympathetic noise underneath him, pulling him in tighter and smoothing a hand down his spine and back up again, an easy, soothing motion that for once makes Martin shiver with something other than a rising tickle in his throat. “Our friends don’t mind, Martin.”

“ _I_ mind!” The exclamation is just a touch too much for his already struggling lungs. It ends up being punctuated by yet another trail of loud, wet coughs. When he recovers, he stays draped over Jon’s midsection, hanging half off the couch. “I mind,” he reiterates. “I’d been looking forward to it after the week I had at work. Now I feel too horrible to even enjoy the plans we made for staying in. Not sure who I need to complain to, but once I feel better I _will_ be taking my complaints somewhere.”

“You’re sort of complaining _now_. To me.”

“Doesn’t count,” Martin insists. “We live together, you said you love me, you _have_ to listen.”

Jon chuckles a little before shifting around until Martin is properly flopped backwards against the couch cushions with Jon lying right in front of him. He places a hand on Martin’s cheek, thumb sweeping outwards to trace the skin beneath his eye. “When’s the last time you took some medicine?”

Martin shrugs, nuzzling against Jon’s hand like a cat who’s been particularly starved of affection. Clumsily, he presses a kiss against Jon’s palm before answering. “’Round seven? Maybe six. Definitely before eight.”

With a roll of his eyes, Jon twists around to check the clock. He comes perilously close to throwing himself off the edge before Martin drags him in close, sinking deeper into the cushions behind him to make more room.

“Half-eleven,” Jon announces. “Close enough to four hours from ‘definitely before eight,’ I think.” He leans in close to press a kiss against Martin’s jaw before moving to get up. “I’ll get you another dose.”

“No,” Martin whines, tightening his grip around Jon’s waist. “I’ll fall asleep and miss everything.”

“Miss what? Loud explosives and drunk cheering?”

“Exactly.”

Jon laughs, untangling himself from Martin’s hold as easily as…well, as easily as it is to untangle yourself from someone who has very limited strength and energy at the moment and rather feels like his limbs are made of spaghetti noodles. “You can make it a half hour,” he says, footsteps disappearing into the kitchen. “And if you fell asleep it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. I already told you we didn’t have to stay up tonight.”

Despite his protests against falling asleep, Martin finds himself letting his eyes slip shut as he curls his arms around a pillow and settles in. His eyes are so dry, too dry to hold up against the lights in the living room, and it doesn’t hurt to rest them a little. It might even do him some good. Maybe if he rests his eyes a couple minutes, gives them a bit of a break, it’ll be easier to stay awake later. He must have drifted, a little, because he doesn’t hear Jon returning until a hand squeezes at his shoulder, shaking gently.

“Oh Christ,” he says, “I didn’t fall asleep already, did I? Did I miss it?”

“Not quite, you’ve still got about twenty-five minutes.” Jon nudges at him until he’s sitting upright and places two pills in his palm, reaching down towards the coffee table to grab the bottle of water left there and hand it off. Martin fights against the scratchiness in his throat as he swallows each capsule, one at a time.

Instead of dropping onto the cushions next to him, Jon disappears back into the kitchen. Martin turns his head to follow his movements until he crosses the doorway, wrinkling his brow in confusion.

Jon comes back holding a bowl. He passes it off to Martin before reclaiming his seat, reclining backwards against the arm of the couch and tugging Martin down next to him.

“I can’t eat these yet,” Martin says, poking at one of the grapes in the bowl, “it’s only half-past. Do you want us to get cursed?”

“If you’re so insistent on staying awake, you don’t need to eat them now. Just thought I’d get them ready.”

Martin squints at him. He knows what game he’s playing, even as Jon reaches out to hit play on the remote and one of his hands returns to the top of Martin’s head, combing through his curls in the same gentle, soothing motion from earlier.

He _is_ tired. But it’s the principle of it all. He may not get to celebrate with his friends, and he may be feeling monumentally disgusting at the moment, all aching limbs and congested sinuses, but he _was_ going to stay awake long enough to see the clock strike twelve. Martin could have this one thing, even if his original plans had gone by the wayside.

Still, his eyes do feel quite heavy and he isn’t liable to last much longer beyond twelve at the rate things are going. He _refuses_ to fall asleep early, not when he’s already made it this far, but. Well, surely it’s better to get the superstitions out of the way a few minutes beforehand than it would be to forget them entirely because he was too busy passing out once the clock hit twelve-oh-one?

Martin very resolutely does not say anything as he makes his way through all twelve grapes anyway, in spite of his earlier protests. Jon, he’s sure, is only pretending not to notice.

The bowl gets abandoned on the floor in front of the couch, next to the bin. No longer at risk of spilling anything, Martin shimmies downward until he’s in a more familiar position, arms around Jon’s waist and cheek resting against his stomach.

He tries to watch the movie, but more often than not his attention is stuck on the bright, blinking numbers of the clock. The colon between the hour and the minutes blinks sixty times before the number changes. Every time the number changes, he starts his count over.

The number eleven fifty-five flashes behind his eyelids.

Martin opens his eyes and blinks hard afterwards, trying to dispel the fog from his vision. Noise filters in slowly, aptly named drunk cheering making its way to his consciousness from the streets outside. He spares a guilty thought for the spot of drool he’s left on Jon’s sweater before squinting at the clock just beneath the television, trying to get the numbers to coalesce into something legible. “What time is it?”

“Twelve thirty.”

 _Shit_. “I can’t believe I missed it. I had five minutes! Five!”

Jon very nicely does not laugh at him or say I told you so, instead brushing the hair away from his forehead and humming softly. “We can try again tomorrow.”

“Why tomorrow?”

“Why not? The new year could just as easily be in February, if you wanted. The new year _is_ in February, for some people. And then again in March. Really, it’s New Year’s all the way down.”

Martin hums. “Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” Jon agrees. “February. March.”

Martin smiles, burrowing back into Jon’s side with a contented sigh and only slightly cringing when he rubs up against the wet spot he’d left on his sweater. “New Year’s all the way down.”

It’s a lovely thought. Martin hadn’t been worried about missing out on the _holiday_ , not really. But they could just as easily do everything they’d planned tomorrow, or the day after. There was nothing saying they couldn’t.

The new year, for them, could start on the second if they wanted it to. Or the third, or the fifth.

February.

March.

Maybe it would. While the rest of the world ushered in a new year, maybe they would stay in the old one for just a bit longer. They’d start their own anew, together, in their own time.

**Author's Note:**

> if u liked this or u just think I might be neat, feel free to hit me up on tumblr/twitter! it's @judesstfrancis/@acetheticallyy, respectively. not to bribe u all but I DO have a couple things I'm working on that I'm hoping to get posted sometime in the next few weeks so. if you're looking for content and u like what I've delivered so far...... *eye emoji*
> 
> anyway, happy new year! I hope this one treats all of u a little kinder


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